When I started travelling

I remember when I first started travelling. I remember going abroad for the first time when I was at high school. A beautiful trip to Greece.

I remember being shocked when I started seeing with my own eyes what I had always known only thanks to my books and tv.

My parents have never been too daredevil; they always loved the quiet holidays in a country house or the same family places.

Thus, when I was 20 and finally started going here and there on my own, I have always tried to see all the things that I could possibly see, as if travelling was an exception in my life. Something I was allowed to do for just a short time and it would come to an end. I had to live every place with the thought that I would have had no other chances to be back there again in my future. Therefore, I started loving travelling alone, without the need to reach compromises with anyone. I would be free to torture my feet as long as I wished, in order to fill my eyes with all the beauty.

I also started hating visiting a place as a common tourist, for maybe just a weekend, and then leave. I began dreaming of a life lived a bit everywhere. I could stay in the same town enough time to earn the label of “temporary citizen” and not “mere tourist”.

When I landed in Dublin in 2013 and started working, I realized that I had come to deserve the right to travel with no limit of time and space. I could also go back to the same places if I wished to. No longer anxious to see everything, not to lose any tiny occasions, no longer scared to settle for compromise.

This year I launched my new travelling style. I can now allow myself to plan with other people, to decide together to rest when feet are sore.

At first, the Serena of the past asked for explanations and tried to raise her voice, but the present one won using her wisdom.